It would be wonderful, truly wonderful, if we could have a touch of the grace, style, charm and intelligent liveability which (apparently) exists in some parts of some European cities. Far more likely, we will get the usual Canberra combination of Costa del Pom tackiness and eastern European soviet era grimness and shoddiness – and it will be every bit as expensive (to buy/rent and maintain) as the market can possibly bear.

“There is chilling irony in that it is the ACT government’s own directorates that proposed, 12 months ago, high-rise buildings of 15 storeys that would overlook in the most crudely insensitive manner one of Canberra’s most successful medium-density developments, i.e. the 144 apartments of Argyle Square, 2-4 storeys high, set in carefully landscaped and maintained communal gardens.”

I know of some students who live in these apartments, it may have been successful once, but that was a long time ago. Very dated, and some of the apartments have been taken over by unsavoury elements. Probably the best thing that could happen to them is a bit of oversight.

Having read the ABC’s take on this news story I’m beginning to have some sympathy for the complainers. Correct me if I’m wrong but the plan is to basically build more and more of the Allawah courts/suicide flats type buildings in Braddon/Reid isn’t it? Ainslie Avenue is already a pretty scuzzy place thanks to the buildings like that it’s already got, increasing the government housing in the area with more high-rises just seems like a bad-idea. There’s already a glut of drug-addicts and dealers in the area, I don’t think building more project-housing is going to do much good.

Onya, Elizabeth. We’ve lost too much of our heritage to these fugly blocks of flats. Continue to be Not Intimidated by Men in the Building IndustrY.

Sorry, but this is rubbish. At the core of NIMBYism is an inherent vicious selfishness of “I was here first, f@ck off” and “nothing should ever change in any way that I personally disagree with”. They’re undemocratic, unreasonable and unsustainable. It’s the NIMBY attitude against density increases which pushes developments out at places like Crace, with no transport or community infrastructure, forcing people to drive to work… and we wonder about increasing traffic.

Cloaking this in “heritage” is a scam, because a few old buildings being left standing does not impact the lives of most residents, when compared to long commutes, overpriced housing, massive mortgages, urban sprawl, more expensive utilities (low density is nearly 10 times more than high density because of the huge capital costs), car dependence… I mean, COME ON! Do you really want to live in western Sydney?

If the inner north, especially along Northbourne, was stacked with 10-storey apartment blocks, Crace and Gungahlin wouldn’t exist and tens of thousands of Canberrans wouldn’t have paid $600,000 -$800,000 for houses. Young people sans brats could live in apartments, and demand for the remaining house stock would be much less, lowering prices. Bien, non?!?

But no, we listen to a hysterical shrieking minority whose core position is “everyone else can get stuffed”. So many northern hemisphere cities are high density and they’re lovely places to live. It’s time for Ms Teather to move on from Canberra circa 1964.

As soon as someone mentions the word ‘nimby’ I switch off, as the debate about density is derogatory and name calling at best. Ian Warden loves to use that word yet he knows nothing about planing.

Increased density doesn’t have to mean High rise which is a lazy way to create density. Six – eight storeys should be fine for this site. The energy performance of buildings over ten storeys increases considerably making them no better than stand alone houses. The trade off as developers will tell you is more people will use public transport and active travel. The link between density and public transport is at best (particularly in Aus) a hopeful one. People certainly don’t cycle more, because its about the quality of the infrastructure that encourages more people to cycle.

So lets dump words like ‘Nimby’ and ‘Banana’ and keep the debate to good design and human scale development.
‘